Web Fonts Issues

Discussions focus on privacy risks like fingerprinting from web fonts, performance delays in loading especially Google Fonts, and alternatives such as self-hosting, browser blocking, or using system fonts.

📉 Falling 0.3x Web Development
3,924
Comments
19
Years Active
5
Top Authors
#6812
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Activity Over Time

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Keywords

US mikeindustries.com immutable.ht mozilla.org NOPE CLS google.com OP herokuapp.com HTTP fonts font web google browser installed site layout user load

Sample Comments

Piskvorrr Jun 21, 2017 View on HN

Most fonts used on websites are not present on users' computers. Why not disable using webfonts in your browser and be done?

have_faith Mar 2, 2020 View on HN

Even google news renders weird without custom fonts if I remember correctly. Lots of sites use font files as icon sets etc.

vaccinator Oct 11, 2020 View on HN

Stop using Google for fonts while you're at it...

sintaxi Jan 3, 2017 View on HN

why don't browsers just ship with its own fonts?

jes5199 Apr 5, 2019 View on HN

interesting that the author used images of the font rather than actually embedding the font into this webpage

adrianN Jul 9, 2020 View on HN

I just set browser.display.use_document_fonts=0 and don't worry about the privacy implications of font loading anymore.

Piraty Jan 16, 2026 View on HN

remember the times when common sense was to not accept the remote site's fonts, and thus web devs should not use them

maccard Jan 30, 2022 View on HN

If you care that much you need to bundle the font with your site.

ddalex Jan 13, 2023 View on HN

Do you have web font blocking setup in the browser?

turnsout Jun 13, 2024 View on HN

Don't forget about self-hosted web fonts! People forget this is even an option